Someplace Warm
by Unanon
Summary: Introspective - Sirius' life is punctuated by extremes.


Someplace Warm  
  
No one ever tells you before you're actually hit by one, but stunning spells freeze your body from the point of impact out. Cold, so cold that along with the thoughts that flit through your head while falling is the fear that you'll shatter on impact.  
  
No one ever says anything.  
  
I'd been hit by stunning spells before. James and I dueled each other ferociously during the summer of my sixteenth year, after I'd abandoned the chilliness of my home for the warm welcome of his. There, mornings trickled by lazily - reading in the sun room after breakfast, playing wizarding chess, tormenting the house elves - but after a hearty luncheon we'd disappear across the wide lawn of the Potter estate to a conveniently sheltered glade where our antics wouldn't be observed from the house. This was in that glorious era when the Ministry turned a blind eye to the 'underage use of magic' statute, especially for pureblood families, and the Potters actually encouraged us to hone our skills, as long as we were careful not to inflict permanent damage on one another.  
  
We'd spend our afternoons in sunlight and shadow, throwing hexes and diving away from counterspells, or shifting into our Animagus forms for an impromptu race. Prongs always maneuvered swiftly between the trees, his flank dappled in the canopy, but I could give him a good race in the meadow. We were evenly matched.  
  
In the exhaustion of late afternoon we'd curl into the tall grass, making a hollow where our bodies could lie undisturbed and concealed from everything but the sky. My memory of those times blurs, lacks definition, culminates in a series of jumbled impressions including laughter, sun-warmed skin, the stickiness of wild berries, and the scent that always lingered at the nape of James' neck.  
  
We'd sleep until the cool of evening awakened us and we'd hike, sheepish, reluctant, or giddy, toward the lights of sanity and security. The entire summer fell into that vibrant pattern, and I could almost fool myself into believing that life would never be any different.  
  
I clung to the vague, remembered warmth of those days with James during my years in Azkaban. It was the only scrap of sunshine in my life, and even the memories were tainted with guilt at my failure, my unconscious betrayal. There were times that I lost the ability to recall them for weeks, months even, shivering in my cell with only my pelt to shield me from the soul-numbing chill of the dementors.  
  
After Fudge's visit I had revenge to warm me. I became inflamed by it. Zealous even. I burned to kill Peter, but the flame never reached my core. My enthusiasm diminished after the encounter at the Shrieking Shack, quenched by my failure to destroy the traitor, by the presence of Remus, a rare anchor and friend. By realizing that my true responsibilities lay elsewhere.  
  
Harry rekindled me. His vitality, his spark (so like James) touched me and strengthened me during those few months I drifted south. I was in exile and alone, but his very existence gave me purpose I had not anticipated. My mind dwelled on him and I wrote him letters from the beach, toes buried in the blazing sand. I would close my eyes beneath the sway of palms and imagine that the breeze carried Harry's scent, a heady combination of James and Lily. Half-dozing, I'd reflect on the shape of my godson's head, on the way his hair jutted unevenly from whirling cowlicks, on the way dirt lined the fingernails of his wand hand, boyish and careless. I spent many days sleeping thus beneath a tropical sun. I almost forgot the cold.  
  
My childhood home reminded me. I longed to return to the tiny cave near Hogsmeade where I could live in peace with my Hippogriff and where, on good days, Harry could bring me chicken. At least there I wasn't confined between hated walls, forced to bear the shrillness of my mother's voice that made me want to shrink within myself more than Azkaban ever had. I begged for release, for action, for escape from those cruel walls and leering house-elf heads, but the Order was adamant. Although he consoled me, Remus sided with them; the childish, wounded part of me felt that was the deepest blow.  
  
There, the chill seeped into my bones, into my heart, my breath. No manner of joy could improve my temper while I was trapped at #12 Grimmauld Place.  
  
The battle at the Ministry was a cacophony of pure joy and laughter; I could breathe once more. I was free and I was doing something!  
  
Then.death. The spreading frost of the stunning spell, the whisper of the veil across my numbing flesh as I fell through the archway. A cold so impossibly frigid that it transcended sensation and made me forget that warmth ever existed. The dim awareness that I was tumbling head over feet until up became down, chill became warmth, and that with every turn another memory broke away.  
  
Icicles.  
  
No one ever tells you. No one ever really knows.  
  
~~~~~~ 


End file.
